


Dawn at Starfall

by DaceyBear



Series: Arya x Gendry week [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, POV Arya Stark, Post-Canon, Post-War for the Dawn, arya x gendry week 2020, axgweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26193523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaceyBear/pseuds/DaceyBear
Summary: Arya and Gendry muse over the name of their newborn son.Written for the third prompt for AxG Week 2020: Let's Get Drunk.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry
Series: Arya x Gendry week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868434
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74





	Dawn at Starfall

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place a few days or maybe the next day after ["I Got Your Back"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098456) the ficlet I wrote for prompt #2 which depicts the birth of Arya and Gendry's child  
> It is in the same universe as ["The Acorn Dreams the Oak"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25756126) another teeny tiny post-canon fic I wrote and ["About Oaths and Wolves"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614373/chapters/62173423) a canon-compliant (book!canon) _work in progress_ reunion fic.

The sun and her son came into the room together. The bringer of dawn, the little thing. 

The sun would bring with it the scalding heat of Dorne. _Summer child._ Arya had been the first of the Starks born to the Lady Catelyn to come in the long summer. Arya, Bran and Rickon had that fortune. _What is born in the summer endures._ A shiver ran through her spine. She thought of her sister. _I ought to tell her. I will ask Maester Sims to send a raven to Winterfell._ Sansa had been born in spring, the cool summer of the north suited her well. _"The heat becomes you,"_ Ned had said weeks past, when he spied her training in scant silks and cottons in the yard. And he was right. Dorne had become Arya better than snow or fog or rain ever had. Gendry liked it too. _Southron through and through, my bull._

“Sansa won't be pleased, little one,” Arya said in a whisper-soft voice to the babe sleeping on her chest. He slept peacefully. It was a big babe, and a strong one; he nursed with such force she was sure he would double in size within the week. Her teats leaked milk, sweet smelling and sticky.

Sansa would be angry. _So that's why you left,_ she would justly accuse. Arya could hear her words even now. _You have to marry him, sister,_ she had said half a hundred times. _Bran will grant you a holdfast, its lands and income. Castle Cerwyn is still empty, and so near as the raven flies. Your lover is a knight. Make this right. Say you won't take him into your bed again until he agrees to marry you._ Arya had always scoffed. Spring lasted three years, and for three years she and Gendry shared a bed every night, and never spoke of marriage. 

The babe started moving his head, reaching for a nipple. She sat up on the bed to better help him latch. As it was his custom, he opened his eyes only when the milk flowed into his mouth, to look at her with lost blue eyes.

"Who are you?" Arya Stark asked her son. For an answer, he suckled. At that moment the door to the bedchamber opened slowly, without a sound; it was a huge thing, two carved wooden doors with silver handles, the hinges well oiled, beautifully fit for a lord's chambers. Only who came through wasn't a lord, but her lover the blacksmith knight, with two flagons in his hands and a smile on his face. It had been rare to see him smile. Not anymore.

"You're up," he said. 

"We are. What bring you there?" She had a thirst to quaff both flagons and still ask for more.

"Fresh water and wine, for m'lady." She had to laugh at that. "The lord wants to meet our babe," Gendry announced. 

"Does he now? Well, it's only fair." Ned had been the sweetest friend she could hope for, and the better host still. "Fetch me that robe," she asked. 

"What, right now?" Gendry looked dumbfounded, the poor thing. His eyes, so much like their child’s already, were lost too.

"When he's done," she settled him. Gendry used his large hands to caress her arm and kissed her temple, then he sat besides her on the bed. Something was bothering him, she could see. _But what?_ Finally, he spoke again. 

"We should name our son before we present him." He said. It was true. But that wasn't all, so Arya chose to say nothing, and Gendry continued. "He'll have a surname, won't he? One of them bastard ones." 

"I guess," _that's what Sansa most feared._ "We can call him however we want." 

"Would you want Ned? Ned Snow?" 

Arya smiled "The Lord of Starfall would be pleased… He'll be a Sand though, not a Snow. We're in Dorne." 

"That's not how it works. You're a Stark, and his mother. Isn't that enough reason to call him Snow?" He had a frown in his handsome face.

"I don't want Snow." Arya said simply, without looking up into Gendry's eyes. She just didn't, of any kind. The thing was dreadfully cold, and the name still hurt too fresh. "Eddard Sand,” she tried, and made a face. “I don't like it either." 

"We can call him however we want, you said." 

"We can."

They were silent for a time, watching the baby suckle. Gendry poured them water. It was fresh in truth, drawn from the well moments before, most like. Arya revelled in it, she had to quench her thirst with tepid water far too frequently.

"He came with the sun," she remembered. She felt foolish, but somehow it seemed important.

Gendry thought so too. He looked at her with serious eyes, a crease between his brows. "Dawn," he said, and nothing else. 

"Aye, he came with dawn."

"No, Dawn. As a name. A surname. For a baby born at Starfall as the day overtook the night." 

Arya smiled. "Summer child," she whispered to baby Dawn. And then it hit her. "Sam," she called, and he sounded a little burp against her breast. It wasn't Eddard or Jon, but it was the name Jon would've chosen for a son of his, she knew. "Sam Dawn." 

"Sam Dawn," Gendry repeated. His eyes twinkled with joy. "Our son. Let's get drunk to it!" Gendry proposed.

Sam chose that moment to release her nipple with a pop. His head fell back languidly and milk dripped from his gaping little mouth. 

"Sam's drunk already, see?" She asked, blissful. 

"I see, m'lady. I am too, come to think of it."


End file.
